Exclusive: In first trip since taking office, Iran's Raisi set to attend SCO summit

The scoop: Iran’s President Ebrahimi Raisi is set to travel to Tajikistan next week in his first foreign trip since taking office, Amwaj.media has learned. Speaking on condition of anonymity, sources in Tehran stated that Raisi will attend the upcoming Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit next week. Importantly, there are indications that the longstanding deadlock over Iran’s accession to the bloc may finally be broken at the gathering. If that occurs, it would be an early and major foreign policy victory for Raisi, who has yet to resume negotiations on a revival of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

The details: Iranian sources have told Amwaj.media that Dushanbe is set to host a SCO Heads of Government meeting on Sept. 16-17. The summit’s agenda is expected to be topped by developments in Afghanistan, which like Iran is currently a SCO observer state. The summit will also reportedly see the convening of a special SCO Contact group meeting.

• Founded in 2001, the SCO brings together regional powers. It has eight full members: China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

• Iran has been a SCO observer member since 2005 and has long sought full membership. However, its accession bids have been thwarted as some SCO members want to avoid entanglement in the Iran-US confrontation.

Iran’s president will reportedly appear in Tajikistan alongside his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin as well as Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, in addition to other regional leaders. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping are expected to virtually address the summit. Amwaj.media has not been able to confirm any scheduled bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the summit.

Importantly, and as Amwaj.media has previously reported, Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Shamkhani on Aug. 11 announced the “good news” that the Islamic Republic is apparently one step closer to full membership in SCO.

• Shamkhani wrote, “In a conversation with my friend and colleague, Secretary of Russia’s Security Council Mr. [Nikolai] Patrushev, we examined the developments in Afghanistan, Syria, and the Persian Gulf,” adding that “the political obstacles to Iran’s membership in the SCO have been removed and Iran’s membership will be finalized after technical procedures.”

If there is an announcement of a change in Iran’s current observer status in connection with the SCO summit, it would be a major foreign policy victory for Raisi and Iran’s conservative camp more broadly, buying them political space as talks over the future of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)—as the 2015 Iran nuclear deal is formally known—remain stalled.

The backdrop: The choice of destination signals Iran’s foreign policy priorities as its new conservative government begins work. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has long maintained that Iran ought to focus on expanded relations with its neighbors as well as Russia and Asian powers instead of seeking normalized ties with the US.

• Putin was reportedly the first foreign leader to congratulate Raisi on his victory in the June 18 presidential elections, which saw record-low turnout over the barring of Raisi’s main rivals. Tehran and Moscow are also reportedly in talks on a 20-year strategic agreement, which would be an extension of a pact signed in 2001.

• After years of negotiations, Iran and China in March this year signed a comprehensive strategic partnership agreement. The accord is not a commercial agreement but rather a roadmap. Furthermore, it does not contain any figures, let alone some rumors of 400B USD in Chinese investment over 25 years.

• Mindful of the foreign policy inclination of Iranian conservatives, a win for Raisi at the SCO summit would be another ideological victory for his constituencies at home given Tehran’s expansion of ties with Moscow and Beijing.

At the same time, good news for Raisi in association with the SCO summit could spell trouble elsewhere.

• The indirect Iran-US talks on the revival of the JCPOA remain stalled as Raisi’s foreign policy team takes shape, and as Tehran and Washington continue to clash about the terms for mutual compliance with the nuclear accord. The US unilaterally walked away from the JCPOA in 2018.

• In this context, the ideological victory of an advancement in Iran’s relationship with the SCO could provide political cover for Iranian conservatives who remain bent on undermining the JCPOA—even as Khamenei favors a revival of the deal.

On the other hand, given the longstanding concerns among some SCO members about the Iran-US confrontation and the impact of US secondary sanctions, the lack of an outright victory for Raisi in Tajikistan—in the form of full SCO membership—would be a clear signal of Iran’s continued need to engage with the US to lift sanctions.